Karat slams Dikshit over alleged involvement in CWG scam

Kolkata, Aug 8 (ANI): Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) General Secretary Prakash Karat has criticized Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit over her indictment in the recently published Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report on irregularities observed in Commonwealth Games.

Talking to reporters here, Karat said: "The Delhi Government has been indicted in CAG report and the chief minister Shrimati Sheila Dikshit has been directly implicated. Normally you would expect such people who hold high public office should step down till their name is cleared at least, but that is not happened."

CAG has slammed Dikshit for overseeing "ill-conceived and ill-planned" projects and unduly favouring certain firms for contracts, according to segments leaked to the media.

Further criticising the central government, Karat said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was always aware of the wrong doings and thus should owe the responsibility.

"As far as the Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) is concerned, his role in the 2G spectrum matter, his approach or the attitude to the KG Basin scam, in all this there are letters and correspondence in which it is clear that he was aware of what was happening or his attention was brought. So, people are now questioning his role and I think the Prime Minister should own up the responsibility," he added.

Karat also slammed government over the ever increasing inflation and price rise in essential commodities.

"We have a government which does not seem to worry that we have nearly double digit inflation today. Inflation is between nine to 10 percent. Normally in any country if it crosses four to five percent the government will be extremely worried but here, if you saw the Lok Sabha discussion on price rise which was held recently, the attitude of government was expressed by Finance Minister (Pranab Mukherjee, you read his whole speech, it is a justification of government policy and saying that we cannot do anything more," he asserted.

He also demanded that the central government take a decision on the Telangana statehood issue without further delay.

"It has been seven months since the submission of the Sri Krishna Committee report, but the central government has not taken any decision on the issue of Telangana and the future of Andhra Pradesh. The central government should take a decision without any more delay." (ANI)